The Status of Arts Education in Ohio's Public ... - Ohio Arts Council

Key Finding: Dance and drama/theatre are seldom taught in Ohio’s public schools.
A total of 86 courses in dance and
413 courses in drama/theatre
were taught in Ohio’s public
schools in 2009-2010,
compared to 10,068 in visual
arts and 9,682 in music.
Figure 4: Total Teachers by Discipline and School Level
4000
3,725
3000 2,741 2,746
The ODE data showed a total of
10,673 Ohio teachers who
provided instruction in one or
more arts disciplines. Of those
teachers, 64 taught dance, and
390 taught drama/theatre. In
contrast, 6,075 taught visual
arts and 4,724 taught music.
Figure 4 shows the numbers of
teachers by discipline and
school level.
2000
1000
0
1,854 1,777 1,817
291
17 29 20 70 27
Elementary Middle High
Dance
Music
Figure 5 shows what those numbers
mean in terms of students. Each bar
represents the percentage of students who
do NOT have access to instruction in
each discipline.
Teachers are counted more than once if they work in
schools that combine elementary, middle, and high
school grades or if they teach in multiple schools.
Figure 5: Percentage of Students WITHOUT
Access to Courses in Each Discipline*
% of Students
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
98%
83%
5%
5%
Dance Music Drama/Theatre Visual Arts
# Without Access: 1,691,302 85,636 1,442,821 91,204
*Course enrollment is a duplicated count. Enrollment for each arts course was counted. In other
words, a student enrolled in two courses in a single arts discipline was counted twice.
Status of Arts Education in Ohio’s Public Schools 22